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I’ve actually got a low F that’s doing something similar (lowest F on the harp). It’s not a buzz, but that note seems to create a sort of strange overtone on the harp that can’t be tuned out. Makes me wonder if harps can have wolf tones similar to bowed string instruments, where for some reason the thing just resonates oddly on certain frequencies. It doesn’t make it unplayable, but it’s within the realm of noticeable.
This is an interesting thread for me — I’m not a singer but have been feeling some sort of similar angst regarding the piano, which has always been my dominant instrument. I started playing when I was a kid and while I was never conservatory-bound, I studied it classically for many years. I’m at the point on it where I can just sit and play without thinking too much, and I love to arrange and compose.
But … something twisted a while back. Now, when I think about sitting at it, I just feel deflated. I suppose it’s for a variety of reasons. It’s a bit depressing, but it is what it is. And here I am at the harp. Maybe it’s a case of a change being as good as a rest. The harp is connecting me with other things — my family, my grandparents and great-grandparents, my heritage … There’s something bigger there than just me.
Nevertheless, I spent so much of my life at the piano, and it does have so many good things about it just as an instrument … Moving away from it makes me feel very down, but I don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. I go home at night and I’m at the harp. I wake up in the morning, and I’m at the harp. And I don’t know what to do about the things I’ve written for piano. Maybe I’ll just put them up on IMSLP and forget about them.
Sorry for the derailment. 🙂 If you want to move in a certain direction, then move in that direction. It’s your mind telling you that that’s how it wants to go. You can row against the river, but you’ll end up going somewhere where you aren’t meant to go.
Thanks! 🙂 I’d like to have enabled comments if I could moderate them, but Vimeo only allows full-on unmoderated comments, no comments, or comments from “people I know,” whatever that means.
I’ve got it up on my latest blog post at italianfolkharp.wordpress.com if you’d like to comment there, and I’d definitely like to hear what you have to say and any advice. I’m having such a good time on it!
Update: Just went back and re-watched it. I’ve got the curly-pinky thing going on in the right hand pretty bad. 😛
Cool, thanks — I’ll look at Hannah’s videos.
And I’ll work on the 2nd/3rd fingers. I’m trying to stay relaxed-relaxed-relaxed right now, and am probably overdoing it. 🙂
Thanks, everyone! Looks like I’m working up my own versions. 🙂
There are a couple real gems in this masterclass, too — I can understand French well enough to just barely keep up, and I found it very useful when she told that kid playing the Am variations to maintain the fingers as low as possible and use the thumb as a pivot, and also that while dogged by tension in her wrists and elbows, she found it useful to simply imagine that she had no wrists nor elbows but just two disembodied hands flitting around on the harp.
I’m finding keeping that low-ish reach and a relaxed hand to be the most important things so far. ANY tension in my fingers, and I’m hosed.
I hope someone knows who the someone is … I’d love to chase this sheet music down. The student in question continues on with multiple variations on this during the course of the masterclass that are all wonderful.
It really depends on the people whose twitter feeds you’re reading. I follow a bunch of NASA and astronaut feeds, and they are interesting, acute, and educational even in 140 characters. The communication mode doesn’t really impact the value of what’s said; smart, interesting people will say smart, interesting things. Inane bores will be inane bores no matter how many characters they have at their disposal.
I wonder if it’s not possible to mount a little flipcam on a tripod and next to it a sign in a pretty, swirly font that says, “This performance is being recorded on video.” That might be a subtle way to imply that … um, if you damage or destroy this extremely expensive piece of equipment, there will be recorded evidence of it. 🙂
I’m another harp beginner, but have been a pianist since I was very young and play/compose. Ultimately, being able to modulate freely is a huge plus for me, so I remain fascinated by cross-strungs especially since the 7/5 ones are laid out similarly to a piano keyboard, enabling me to leverage that experience. Pedal harps are marvelous but money, money, money, money, expense to maintain, money, weight, inconvenience, and money remain obstacles.
However, the vertically strung lever harps have a more developed pedagogy, which would enable me to grow a more stable technique. Hence as Biagio recommends, I went for the Ravenna 34.
If you’re new to music, it might be a good idea for you to get a Ravenna as well. Use it to develop your technique and learn the ins and outs of music; harps seem straightforward and are, but there are gotchas lurking on them. (You will spend 90% of your time trying not to sound like a bug-zapper.) Also, learning the basic grammar of music takes some time.
As your technique firms up, you can always unload the Ravenna and get yourself a x-strung. Ravennas are popular and well-liked, and snapped up quickly on craigslist, so you shouldn’t have any problems selling it on when you’re ready.
The big thing I’d worry about is that, if the current owner hasn’t taken care of it, it may have spent a lot of its life next to a fireplace, sunny window, heat vent, or something like that, and stringing it at tension could rip apart the soundboard or the body, or cause some sort of structural failure.
The bride to the groom: “Godzilla.” The groom to the bride: “Pickle.”
We can only hope this wasn’t the continuation of an argument about the name of their hypothetical firstborn.
Having fun with the new baby; I think its name might be Chiacchierone, which is Italian for “chatterbox” and a word I heard a lot growing up. 🙂 I’m always surprised at the way the bass strings/wires will vibrate in sympathy with anything at all, so that I need to quiet them down. Unsurprising, I guess — it’s a bit like a piano with a brick on the damper pedal in that way.
I’m enjoying getting ready quickly in the mornings and then taking the 15-20 minutes free until I have to leave doing arpeggios and extremely slow scales in each hand and, even more slowly, hands-together. I am very, very surprised to find an instrument the noise of which I like enough that I can tolerate it in the mornings, and after a whopping two days :-), I hope this continues. It’s nice to have something relaxing and pleasant to do in the morning before heading off to the salt mines.
I’m finding myself annoyed with my ring fingers, though. On the piano from the way the hand is held, their relative length (or lack of it!) really means nothing, and I’m happy to have somewhat larger than average hands for piano. On the harp though, the fact that it’s a bit shorter than my index finger is a real pain. That’s typical for women though, and women are typically all over the harp, so I suppose it’s not a fatal problem, just an aggravating one that has to be dealt with as time goes on.
I can feel the proximal sides of my middle fingers wanting to toughen up too, especially on the left hand, which makes sense as that’s on the thick bass strings. My thumbs are already somewhat tough, so they’re okay with things.
Anyhow. 🙂
The only guideline I remember hearing from someone who played weddings and receptions is to tell the person that your billable time starts the minute you begin loading your equipment into your car. I think the phrase he used was, “You’re paying me to load up my car, drive here, be here for X hours, load up my car, and drive home. While I’m here, I play for free.” It’s an interesting way to put it.
And here it is in its new home:
I hope to blog about my experiences with it, partly to help me keep on track and partly (someday) to help popularize Italian folk music on the harp, but that will be a long time coming since … well … this is hard! I have large hands for piano, but that’s almost a drawback in some ways since I think smaller fingers might fit a bit better on it, and the hand position on the harp is nothing like that on the piano, making my existing flexibility not very useful.
And the potential for surface noise is immense. For an instrument that can sound so heavenly when well played, it can sure make some cringe-worthy noises when it’s not.
I spent an enormous amount of time on it last night, concentrating on keeping an open, relaxed hand, closing into the palm, and keeping my thumbs up (thank you, Josh Layne!), and just trying to get used to the new landscape of strings as opposed to a keyboard.
I may want the 8″ legs on it since I can currently turn my head to one side and rest my chin on the top of the neck with no effort whatsoever, and that seems a bit low to me. It’s comfortable, though.
I even spent about a half an hour on it this morning before leaving for work. It’s a subtle, quieter instrument so it isn’t offensive in the mornings to either me or very likely to my neighbors. I’m quite happy about the potential for a half hour of practice every morning.
Anyhow, I’ll have to put all of these burblings on my new blog so I don’t keep babbling at you nice people — and thanks to Biagio for your book suggestions and to everyone for your welcome. 🙂
(I can also highly recommend Dusty Strings, like most people who have dealt with them. They were extremely responsive and pleasant to deal with, and the harp is lovely.)
